Estimating the technical efficiency of health care systems: A cross-country comparison using the directional distance function

Performance of health care delivery at the cross-country level has not often been directly evaluated by given inputs and outputs. This study estimates the efficiency of the health care systems of 170 countries by extending recent research using Simar and Wilson’s bootstrap data envelopment analysis with a sensitivity test. The 170 countries are divided into four groups to compute efficiency estimators necessary to attaining a homogeneity requirement. The major finding is that most countries were inefficient to maximize the use of their inputs at the given output level. Countries in the high-income group have a relatively high average efficiency, but only 16.7% of the countries performed efficiently in the management of their health care systems. Notably, Asian countries performed more efficiently among other regions in each group. This study suggests that inefficient countries should pay attention to benchmark health care best practices within their regional peer groups.

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Cross-country Evaluation of Health Care Systems Performance on Mortality Indices

Journal of Applied Sciences ◽

10.3923/jas.2012.153.160 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 153-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Awat Feizi ◽

Anoshirvan Kazemnejad ◽

Gholamreza Babaee

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Care Systems ◽

Cross Country

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Household Portfolio Choices, Health Status and Health Care Systems a Cross-Country Analysis Based on Share

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1744882 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Vincenzo Atella ◽

Marianna Brunetti ◽

Nicole Maestas

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Status ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Portfolio Choices ◽

Household Portfolio ◽

Care Systems ◽

Country Analysis ◽

Cross Country

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Household Portfolio Choices, Health Status and Health Care Systems: A Cross-Country Analysis Based on Share

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1830642 ◽

2011 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Vincenzo Atella ◽

Marianna Brunetti ◽

Nicole Maestas

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Status ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Portfolio Choices ◽

Household Portfolio ◽

Care Systems ◽

Country Analysis ◽

Cross Country

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Dementia and COVID-19 in Chile, New Zealand and Germany: A Research Agenda for Cross-Country Learning for Resilience in Health Care Systems

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su131810247 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (18) ◽

pp. 10247

Author(s):

Franziska Laporte Uribe ◽

Oscar Arteaga ◽

Walter Bruchhausen ◽

Gary Cheung ◽

Sarah Cullum ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

New Zealand ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Healthy Aging ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Social Systems ◽

Health Care Research ◽

Global Health Research ◽

Care Systems ◽

Cross Country

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed existing gaps in policies, systems and services, stressing the need for concerted global action on healthy aging. Similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, dementia is a challenge for health systems on a global scale. Our hypothesis is that translational potential lies in cross-country learning by involving three high-income countries with distinct geo-political-cultural-social systems in Latin America (Chile), the South Pacific (New Zealand) and Europe (Germany). Our vision is that such cross-country learning will lead to providing adequate, equitable and sustainable care and support for families living with dementia during a pandemic and beyond. We are proposing a vision for research that takes a multi-disciplinary, strength-based approach at the intersection of health care research, disaster research, global health research and dementia research. We present some insights in support of our hypothesis and proposed research agenda. We anticipate that this research has the potential to contribute towards strengthening and transforming health care systems in times of crises and beyond.

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Technical efficiency of health-care systems in selected middle-income countries: an empirical investigation

Review of Economics and Political Science ◽

10.1108/reps-03-2020-0038 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 267-287

Author(s):

Heba Nassar ◽

Hala Sakr ◽

Asmaa Ezzat ◽

Pakinam Fikry

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Technical Efficiency ◽

Stochastic Frontier Analysis ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Stochastic Frontier ◽

Middle Income ◽

Content Type ◽

Frontier Analysis ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

Care Systems

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate the technical efficiency of the health-care systems in 21 selected middle-income countries during the period (2000–2017) and determine the source of inefficiency whether it is transient (short run) or persistent (long run). Design/methodology/approach The study uses the stochastic frontier analysis technique through employing the generalized true random effects model which overcomes the drawbacks of the previously introduced stochastic frontier models and allows for the separation between unobserved heterogeneity, persistent inefficiency and transient inefficiency. Findings Persistent efficiency is lower than the transient efficiency; hence, there are more efficiency gains that can be made by the selected countries by adopting long-term policies that aim at reforming the structure of the health-care system in the less efficient countries such as South Africa and Russia. The most efficient countries are Vietnam, Mexico and China which adopted a social health insurance that covers almost the whole population with the aim of increasing access to health-care services. Also, decentralization in health-care has assisted in adopting health-care policies that are suitable for both the rural and urban areas based on their specific conditions and health-care needs. A key success in the implementation of the adopted long-term policies by those countries is the continuous monitoring and evaluation of their outcomes and comparing them with the predefined targets and conducting any necessary modifications to ensure their movement in the right path to achieve their goals. Originality/value Although several studies have evaluated the technical efficiency both across and within countries using non-parametric (data envelopment analysis) and parametric (stochastic frontier analysis) approaches, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to evaluate the technical efficiency of selected middle-income countries during the period (2000–2017) using the generalized true random effects stochastic frontier analysis model.

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